Dan C wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:20:06 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
>>
>
> They don't really have their own network. It was me substituting
> "Clinton" for "Cable", as in "Cable News Network", or CNN.

Oh, I get it now. :-)

> Probably the biggest and most widely watched cable news broadcast watched
> over here in the USA.

Apart from NBC - or is that still MS-NBC, or is that a different thing
alltogether? - CNN is also the only American-based news broadcast on
Belgian television, and then even only if you have a digital TV
subscription. The TV cable provider here in the Flanders chose to remove
CNN (among others) from the analog channels offer to make way for a useless
station that does nothing but broadcast 30-minute "special offer, order
now" commercials, and a few foreign channels to please certain ethnically
foreign population groups in our country, e.g. Turkish national television.

At least, that's how it is here in the Flanders, but I imagine that there
will be far less interest over that in Wallonia, due to the fact that the
French-speaking community seems to require movies being overdubbed in
French, and CNN doesn't exactly come with French subtitles, so they're not
very likely to want to watch CNN anyway, or even the BBC for that matter.
With almost no Dutch, English or German in their secondary school program,
you can't really blame them. :-/

> Most "experts" agree that it is clearly biased to the left/Liberal side,
> and Fox News is not so much. Therefore the Libs can claim that Fox is the
> "right-wing" news network.

I can't say that I've actually discerned any political bias on CNN, but it
is of course a given that the current situation - e.g. the last 12 months
or so - there's a lot more news from the Democrat front now, with the whole
soap opera going on between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That ought
to be good for some high ratings. <grin>

> In actuality, Fox is most closely aligned to the center and only appears
> to be slanted to the right because *ALL* the other news channels are so
> obviously left biased.

The claim that *all* other American news broadcasts are leftwing-biased is
rather hard to believe in a country with as many channels and news stations
as the United States of America. That would supposit that the majority of
the USA is leftwing-biased, which again is rather hard to believe from a
country routed so deeply into conservatism.

Perhaps you are just misconstruing the fact that most news stations address
other issues than Fox - at least, that is my assumption as I don't know
what Fox does or does not address, of course. Perhaps Fox is focussing
more on traditional American interests, such as economic news or reports
from what goes on inside the Republican party, which - apart from the now
concluded nominee battle between John McCain, Mitt Romney and others -
catches less the attention of the news stations than the bickering between
Obama and Clinton.

> I don't agree with your assessment of *why* the news networks are left
> biased...

Just for the record, I was not stating why I believe they are being
leftwing-biased, but rather as to why they select whatever interest they
do. In fact, I don't think they really care whose side they're on. For
them it's always been about business, and so it will always be.

> In my opinion, it's because they wish to impose that brand of politics on
> the masses, to further the cause of /big-government-is-good/ that they
> think will help ensure their survival.

I think that's a bit far-fetched, and in contradiction with the rather
traditionally mild rightwing bias of the statistically average American.

> The same thing happens on all college campuses, where the Lib-leaning
> professors all try to indoctrinate young minds into the socialist/leftist
> way of thinking while they are still impressionable.

I think you're seeing ghosts now - no offense intended. Surely there is a
strong leftwinged movement in the US, but there is also an equally strong
rightwinged movement. This is why a Democrat will win the elections one
day and a Republican will win the next day.

The odds are about even for both, and the fact that candidates from both
parties are selected by the people to become the next president of the USA
depends largely on the independent voters. As I understand it, everyone
who wants to vote in the US must register first as either a Democrat, a
Republican or an Independent, and the latter tend to swing back and forth
between the Democrats and Republicans. Is that correct?

An American ex-military officer - retired as a Colonel, I believe - now
attached to the embassy recently explained something of that sort in a
political talkshow on television not too long ago. He did that in a fairly
decent Dutch, actually, and he also mentioned that it was kind of
"recommended and traditional" that military personnel votes for the
Republican presidential candidate. (I guess that must be where you're
coming from, then. :p)

Either way, intellectuals tend to be rather leftwinged - that just comes
naturally with being intellectual (:p), although there have over the course
of history of course also been a great number of rather (and extreme)
rightwinged intellectuals.

On the other hand, the corporate world will always lean over to the
rightwing, even over here. Yet a distinction that you as an American would
probably not know is that the moderate rightwing here are also called
"liberals", while they have nothing to do with the American liberal
movement. In fact, those calling themselves "liberals" over here - with
the exception of the leftwing liberals, which are in the minority - should
actually more appropriately be called "libertarians", which as I gather is
considered rightwinged even in America.

> With all these influences, you'd think the leftists/Libs/Democrats would
> dominate US politics and policies, but strangely enough, just the opposite
> is true.

Well, as I stated above, for as far as we Europeans can tell, America has a
slight bias towards convervatism and the Republican Party in terms of
culture, while in terms of the odds for either a Democrat or a Republican
to win the elections are very evenly distributed, and the actual election
depends on the mood of the Independent voters.

Either way, the current American situation is that Congress is currently
dominated by the Democrats, while you (also currently) have a Republican
president in the White House. So you've got a little of both, but as we've
seen on numerous occasions, George W. Bush as made ample use of his veto
right already in the past couple of years, and so in the end, he's still
the one on top of the chain of command. After all, he _is_ still the
president for at least another year or so.

(Not that I think this veto right is a good thing, but this is a
consideration of a politically technical nature - I am not criticizing
George W. Bush right now, even if - as you know - I (usually) don't agree
with the man.)

> That in itself speaks volumes about how people's attitudes change as they
> get a little older and wiser.

Oops, you are naming "older" and "wiser" in one sentence. :-) While it is
true that people's opinions tend to change a lot as they grow older and -
let's call it - more experienced in life, wisdom is often attributed to a
great many but only held by a select few. ;-)

> It can be quite interesting at times, especially in election years, and
> especially *this* election year.

Well, I don't know about "interesting", but it's going to be quite
predictable at the least. We have a saying here in Dutch that goes
something like "If two dogs are fighting over a bone, a third one will run
away with it".

Instead of working together - after all, regardless of whether Hillary
Clinton or Barack Obama wins the Democratic Nomineeship for the upcoming
presidential elections, they're going to need a running mate - the two
Democrat Nominee candidates are doing the best they can to get into the
media by smearing eachother's name. Last I've heard, some guys siding up
with La Clinton have messed with Obama's website, or something of that
sort.

Personally, I tend to lean over to Barack Obama as a "possibly good American
president" because I don't like Hillary Clinton. In my personal view,
she's attempting to get back into the White House for the wrong reasons,
the keyword here being "back". She liked it there, and she wants to taste
the power again. She's got a reputation - even over here in Europe - of
not being an honest woman.

Deliberate or not, but that was a suit she got into as "the wife of",
because she knew all too well about her husband's sex addiction, and for
the sake of his career did everything within her power to buy the silence
of the women involved. She did not succeed in all cases, and eventually
the Republicans exposed him in the Monica Lewinsky affair, but
nevertheless, as we say here in Dutch "she knows the crack of the whip".
Or as Americans would say it, "She's been around the block".

Obama is far less experienced in politics than La Clinton, and while he may
be full of good intentions, there's still something about him that I don't
really like. I can't really put my finger to it and I may be wrong, but
the way he walks comes across as just a bit too selfassured to me, which I
myself - I repeat, this may be my own personal interpretation and I may be
grossly wrong - find just a wee bit too close to the fine line between
assertiveness and arrogance.

So as a European, or perhaps more so from my personal point of view, I don't
really like either Democratic candidate, apart from that you basically
never can trust any politician with regard to any promises they make in
full pre-election campaign.

Yet, as a European, I want to see the war in Iraq come to an end and a more
"internationally friendly" attitude from the USA than under George W. Bush.
Iran, China and now also Russia again are things best handled with a great
deal of care and caution. And thus, also in light of my own political
preferences, I would opt for a Democratic candidate, and so if I have to
decide which one of the current Democratic Candidates to pick, I'd go with
the lesser of the two evils, so to speak, and I would pick Obama.

On the other hand, John McCain seems like a man with integrity to me. He's
a man who's seen the battlefield up close and who knows how to be humble.
He's a Republican and he's in favor of a continued American presence in
Iraq, as well as of the hardline national security measures issued by the
Bush Administration. Yet he comes across as sympathetic and respectable to
me.

Given the two fighting dogs aphorism and the fact that I'm not so sure yet
whether traditional America is ready to accept either a black man or a
woman to become the prime resident of the White House, my prognosis is that
John McCain will probably win the next American presidential elections.

There, see, I'm not unreasonable. :p

Aragorn wrote:


> Oh, I get it now. :-)
>
>> Probably the biggest and most widely watched cable news broadcast watched
>> over here in the USA.

Actually Fox News gets more viewers in the US as far as Cable News goes. The
3 major networks still get the lions share but are losing that everyday.

> Apart from NBC - or is that still MS-NBC, or is that a different thing
> alltogether? - CNN is also the only American-based news broadcast on
> Belgian television, and then even only if you have a digital TV
> subscription. The TV cable provider here in the Flanders chose to remove
> CNN (among others) from the analog channels offer to make way for a
> useless station that does nothing but broadcast 30-minute "special offer,
> order now" commercials, and a few foreign channels to please certain
> ethnically foreign population groups in our country, e.g. Turkish national
> television.

I like calling them PMSNBC which is a term made famous by our illustrious
leader Rush Limbaugh famous radio personality.

Guess they believe as many Cable Providers in the US "if it ain't broke do
everything you can to screw it up".

> At least, that's how it is here in the Flanders, but I imagine that there
> will be far less interest over that in Wallonia, due to the fact that the
> French-speaking community seems to require movies being overdubbed in
> French, and CNN doesn't exactly come with French subtitles, so they're not
> very likely to want to watch CNN anyway, or even the BBC for that matter.
> With almost no Dutch, English or German in their secondary school program,
> you can't really blame them. :-/
>> I can't say that I've actually discerned any political bias on CNN, but it
> is of course a given that the current situation - e.g. the last 12 months
> or so - there's a lot more news from the Democrat front now, with the
> whole
> soap opera going on between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That ought
> to be good for some high ratings. <grin>

You actually follow US politics?

>> In actuality, Fox is most closely aligned to the center and only appears
>> to be slanted to the right because *ALL* the other news channels are so
>> obviously left biased.
>
> The claim that *all* other American news broadcasts are leftwing-biased is
> rather hard to believe in a country with as many channels and news
> stations
> as the United States of America. That would supposit that the majority of
> the USA is leftwing-biased, which again is rather hard to believe from a
> country routed so deeply into conservatism.

Well believe it because its true. Specially MSNBC and NBC. They have taken
up the ultra left agenda and are unapologetic about it.

>
> Perhaps you are just misconstruing the fact that most news stations
> address other issues than Fox - at least, that is my assumption as I don't
> know
> what Fox does or does not address, of course. Perhaps Fox is focussing
> more on traditional American interests, such as economic news or reports
> from what goes on inside the Republican party, which - apart from the now
> concluded nominee battle between John McCain, Mitt Romney and others -
> catches less the attention of the news stations than the bickering between
> Obama and Clinton.

Fox has people on with opposing views and has for a long time. The other
networks have just started this approach.

>> I don't agree with your assessment of *why* the news networks are left
>> biased...
>
> Just for the record, I was not stating why I believe they are being
> leftwing-biased, but rather as to why they select whatever interest they
> do. In fact, I don't think they really care whose side they're on. For
> them it's always been about business, and so it will always be.

Fox saw a need for some kind of balance and ran with it. The other networks
are always brow beating them for being conservative.

>> In my opinion, it's because they wish to impose that brand of politics on
>> the masses, to further the cause of /big-government-is-good/ that they
>> think will help ensure their survival.
>
> I think that's a bit far-fetched, and in contradiction with the rather
> traditionally mild rightwing bias of the statistically average American.

That maybe turning towards the left. Won't know for sure until the upcoming
elections.

>> I think you're seeing ghosts now - no offense intended. Surely there is a
> strong leftwinged movement in the US, but there is also an equally strong
> rightwinged movement. This is why a Democrat will win the elections one
> day and a Republican will win the next day.
>
> The odds are about even for both, and the fact that candidates from both
> parties are selected by the people to become the next president of the USA
> depends largely on the independent voters. As I understand it, everyone
> who wants to vote in the US must register first as either a Democrat, a
> Republican or an Independent, and the latter tend to swing back and forth
> between the Democrats and Republicans. Is that correct?

Yes somewhat, a little over simplified but close. The only problem with some
states you cannot vote in the primaries if your an Independent, unless it's
for an Independent. Which sucks cause I'm an Independent and I wanted to
vote for Romney, now I'm stuck voting for McCain in the general election
and I'm not happy. I'm a Conservative and McCain is not. He's what we call
a RHINO. Republican in name only.


> An American ex-military officer - retired as a Colonel, I believe - now
> attached to the embassy recently explained something of that sort in a
> political talkshow on television not too long ago. He did that in a
> fairly decent Dutch, actually, and he also mentioned that it was kind of
> "recommended and traditional" that military personnel votes for the
> Republican presidential candidate. (I guess that must be where you're
> coming from, then. :p)

That's generally the way the Military votes because Republican are strong on
Defense. Dems are usually very weak on Defense and love cutting it to
ribbons. Jimmy Carter ring a Bell and even Clinton cut the hell out of the
military.

> Either way, intellectuals tend to be rather leftwinged - that just comes
> naturally with being intellectual (:p), although there have over the
> course of history of course also been a great number of rather (and
> extreme) rightwinged intellectuals.

Who did you have in mind?

>
> On the other hand, the corporate world will always lean over to the
> rightwing, even over here. Yet a distinction that you as an American
> would probably not know is that the moderate rightwing here are also
> called "liberals", while they have nothing to do with the American liberal
> movement. In fact, those calling themselves "liberals" over here - with
> the exception of the leftwing liberals, which are in the minority - should
> actually more appropriately be called "libertarians", which as I gather is
> considered rightwinged even in America.

Sounds a bit confusing. We have Libertarians here to.

>> With all these influences, you'd think the leftists/Libs/Democrats would
>> dominate US politics and policies, but strangely enough, just the
>> opposite is true.
>
> Well, as I stated above, for as far as we Europeans can tell, America has
> a slight bias towards convervatism and the Republican Party in terms of
> culture, while in terms of the odds for either a Democrat or a Republican
> to win the elections are very evenly distributed, and the actual election
> depends on the mood of the Independent voters.

That's very true. But its changing because the culture is changing and
Political Correctness. Everyone is getting too touchy feely and afraid of
offending others. To many damn immigrants mostly illegal coming into this
country. It's starting to change the culture instead of as-simulating.

>
> Either way, the current American situation is that Congress is currently
> dominated by the Democrats, while you (also currently) have a Republican
> president in the White House. So you've got a little of both, but as
> we've seen on numerous occasions, George W. Bush as made ample use of his
> veto right already in the past couple of years, and so in the end, he's
> still
> the one on top of the chain of command. After all, he _is_ still the
> president for at least another year or so.

To bad he doesnt have the Line Item Veto!!!!

>
> (Not that I think this veto right is a good thing, but this is a
> consideration of a politically technical nature - I am not criticizing
> George W. Bush right now, even if - as you know - I (usually) don't agree
> with the man.)

That's understandable. But we do what Europe is afraid to do. And that is
ACT. While Europe sits on its hands like they did in WWII, Extreme Muslims
are causing problems. Seems you have a Muslim problem at the moment. Hmmmmm
wonder why. Ya think they think you are easily messed with? There are times
when I think Europe is a weak Continent and knows we will come to their
rescue.

[..]
> something like "If two dogs are fighting over a bone, a third one will run
> away with it".
>
> Instead of working together - after all, regardless of whether Hillary
> Clinton or Barack Obama wins the Democratic Nomineeship for the upcoming
> presidential elections, they're going to need a running mate - the two
> Democrat Nominee candidates are doing the best they can to get into the
> media by smearing eachother's name. Last I've heard, some guys siding up
> with La Clinton have messed with Obama's website, or something of that
> sort.

Seems you know lots of the US political climate. I love watching them
destroy the Democrat Party. Up till now everyone thought they were above it
all. Oh well.

>
> Personally, I tend to lean over to Barack Obama as a "possibly good
> American
> president" because I don't like Hillary Clinton. In my personal view,
> she's attempting to get back into the White House for the wrong reasons,
> the keyword here being "back". She liked it there, and she wants to taste
> the power again. She's got a reputation - even over here in Europe - of
> not being an honest woman.

that's the way most see her here too. But I'm not a fan of Obama either.

>
> Deliberate or not, but that was a suit she got into as "the wife of",
> because she knew all too well about her husband's sex addiction, and for
> the sake of his career did everything within her power to buy the silence
> of the women involved. She did not succeed in all cases, and eventually
> the Republicans exposed him in the Monica Lewinsky affair, but
> nevertheless, as we say here in Dutch "she knows the crack of the whip".
> Or as Americans would say it, "She's been around the block".
>
> Obama is far less experienced in politics than La Clinton, and while he
> may be full of good intentions, there's still something about him that I
> don't
> really like. I can't really put my finger to it and I may be wrong, but
> the way he walks comes across as just a bit too selfassured to me, which I
> myself - I repeat, this may be my own personal interpretation and I may be
> grossly wrong - find just a wee bit too close to the fine line between
> assertiveness and arrogance.

You got that right. Elitist comes to mind, and we are finding out he's got
more baggage then he led on to. And I don't like his explanation of
his "Flag Lapel" thing.

>
> So as a European, or perhaps more so from my personal point of view, I
> don't really like either Democratic candidate, apart from that you
> basically never can trust any politician with regard to any promises they
> make in full pre-election campaign.
>
> Yet, as a European, I want to see the war in Iraq come to an end and a
> more "internationally friendly" attitude from the USA than under George W.
> Bush. Iran, China and now also Russia again are things best handled with a
> great
> deal of care and caution. And thus, also in light of my own political
> preferences, I would opt for a Democratic candidate, and so if I have to
> decide which one of the current Democratic Candidates to pick, I'd go with
> the lesser of the two evils, so to speak, and I would pick Obama.

Good luck dealing with Iran and Russia. China I'm not to worried about yet.
Although that could change after the Olympics and do think they will become
a major threat in the future.

>
> On the other hand, John McCain seems like a man with integrity to me.
> He's a man who's seen the battlefield up close and who knows how to be
> humble. He's a Republican and he's in favor of a continued American
> presence in Iraq, as well as of the hardline national security measures
> issued by the
> Bush Administration. Yet he comes across as sympathetic and respectable
> to me.
>
> Given the two fighting dogs aphorism and the fact that I'm not so sure yet
> whether traditional America is ready to accept either a black man or a
> woman to become the prime resident of the White House, my prognosis is
> that John McCain will probably win the next American presidential
> elections.

Its a close call. But should get interesting.

> There, see, I'm not unreasonable. :p
>

But very long winded :P
And very informed about US Political Game. I'm impressed. I know next to
nothing about Dutch Politics. I do love this country, it has givin me lots
that is why I stick up for it vehemently.

Take care.

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 05:23:31 +0000, evodawg wrote:

>> The claim that *all* other American news broadcasts are leftwing-biased
>> is rather hard to believe in a country with as many channels and news
>> stations
>> as the United States of America. That would supposit that the majority
>> of the USA is leftwing-biased, which again is rather hard to believe
>> from a country routed so deeply into conservatism.
>
> Well believe it because its true. Specially MSNBC and NBC. They have
> taken up the ultra left agenda and are unapologetic about it.

You owe me a new keyboard and a cup of coffee!

"Ultra-left".... Now I've heard everything.

evodawg wrote:

> Aragorn wrote:
>
>> Apart from NBC - or is that still MS-NBC, or is that a different thing
>> alltogether? - CNN is also the only American-based news broadcast on
>> Belgian television, and then even only if you have a digital TV
>> subscription. The TV cable provider here in the Flanders chose to remove
>> CNN (among others) from the analog channels offer to make way for a
>> useless station that does nothing but broadcast 30-minute "special offer,
>> order now" commercials, and a few foreign channels to please certain
>> ethnically foreign population groups in our country, e.g. Turkish
>> national television.
>
> I like calling them PMSNBC which is a term made famous by our illustrious
> leader Rush Limbaugh famous radio personality.

I have heard (or rather read) the name Rush Limbaugh before, but at that
time I didn't know who he was and I thought he was a Congressman or
Senator. I had read about him in the editor's column of Guitar Player
Magazine.

> Guess they believe as many Cable Providers in the US "if it ain't broke do
> everything you can to screw it up".

Well, digital TV was about to be introduced here at the time, and they were
facing competition there. Belgacom used to be a stage holding with the
monopoly on telephony, but they have become a private enterprise now. They
are also an ISP, and they offered digital TV via ADSL.

Telenet, which is my ISP and which owns most of the cable network here in
The Flanders offered digital TV via the cable modem, and they are also the
ones who determine what channels you can watch on analog TV, depending on
your region. They were trying to rush their implementation of digital TV,
but Belgacom beat them to it. The Belgacom offer is less interesting for
me though as they focus on soccer channels as the "bonus channels", and I
hate soccer. ;-)

And so, in order to get more people into buying (and now also renting) a
digital TV decoder, they moved some of the interesting channels away from
the analog network and offer them for free via the digital network.

Digital TV is free if you opt for Telenet, although you need to buy either a
Digibox (digital decoder) or a Digicorder (digital decoder with HDD). But
of course, the base package gives you very little of advantage of digital
television. Basically all you get is the higher quality and a reasonably
large number of stations compared to the analog network, and so if you want
the ability to "rewind" a program or use the interactive program guide to
plan a recording, you have to pay a monthly fee.

Nowadays however they have also already begun offering HD digital TV, but
that's not free of charge, and you need a special decoder - the normal
Digibox and Digicorder do not support high definition - which is also very
expensive, both in purchase and in lease.

>> I can't say that I've actually discerned any political bias on CNN, but
>> it is of course a given that the current situation - e.g. the last 12
>> months or so - there's a lot more news from the Democrat front now, with
>> the whole soap opera going on between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
>> That ought to be good for some high ratings. <grin>
>
> You actually follow US politics?

Not in particular, but our own local news stations do report on stuff that
goes on in the US, and particularly the "spectacle" going on between
Clinton and Obama. But for instance, you can bet on any high school or
college/university shoot-out drama going on in the US to hit our television
newsfeed right away. The VRT - the Flemish Community national television
broadcast - has various reporters living in the US, and the commercial
networks - although I am less inclined to watch their news broadcasts -
also have correspondents there.

Other than that, having CNN available on my TV comes in handy sometimes, and
I also regularly read something pertaining to US politics on Slashdot. ;-)

>>> In actuality, Fox is most closely aligned to the center and only appears
>>> to be slanted to the right because *ALL* the other news channels are so
>>> obviously left biased.
>>
>> The claim that *all* other American news broadcasts are leftwing-biased
>> is rather hard to believe in a country with as many channels and news
>> stations as the United States of America. That would supposit that the
>> majority of the USA is leftwing-biased, which again is rather hard to
>> believe from a country routed so deeply into conservatism.
>
> Well believe it because its true. Specially MSNBC and NBC. They have taken
> up the ultra left agenda and are unapologetic about it.

Well, what is considered "ultra-left" by one may be "just right of center"
to another, and both "left" and "right" are actually inaccurate
denominators in modern politics, simply because they are too generic.

For instance, here in The Flanders, the Liberal Party (OpenVLD) is ethically
rather leftwinged but economically rather libertarian. The Socialist Party
(SP.A) is ethically slightly left of center and economically rather
ambiguous - they have both socialist and neo-liberal/libertarian views,
which is why they are being criticized over not being real socialists
anymore. CD&V and NV-A on the other hand are both considered economically
dead-center, but are ethically rather conservative, with - at least for
CD&V - Christian inspiration.

And then, as if that's not all, there is a third factor here now beside the
ethical and economical viewpoints, i.e. the subject of state reform.
Currently, Belgium is a Federal State, with three communities and three
regions.

The Flemish community - at about 57% of the population - geographically
lives in the Flemish region, but that's about where the community/region
equation ends. The other two communities are the French-speaking community
- at about 42% of the population - and the German-speaking community - at
about 1% of the community. Both of those communities reside in the
Wallonian region, with the German-speaking community living near the
Eastern border. They do not have a region of their own, but instead there
is the Brussels Capitol Region, which is linguistically a mixture of
Flemish and French-speaking people, along with many foreigners who work in
Brussels for the UN, the EU, NATO or whatever.

Brussels is originally a Flemish city and is geographically located on
Flemish territory but is increasingly becoming more French-spoken. I'm not
sure what causes this, but it is a fact that our royalty - although our
King is actually of German descent - mainly speaks French; this is all too
obvious from the very strong accent and the unusual choice of words
whenever one of the King's children opens their mouths on TV.

The Flemish people have long had to fight for their language under
domination by nobility of French origin. We were occupied by France twice
throughout our history; once around the 13th Century, and later by
Napoleon. And with Dutch being so poorly taught (if at all) in Wallonian
schools and certain French-speaking politicians refusing to learn Dutch or
refusing to speak Dutch while they actually can, you can understand that
there is a problem.

In addition to the above, the political climate is quite different in
Wallonia from what it's like in the Flanders. Wallonia has the PS
(French-speaking old school socialists) and the MR (French-speaking
libertarians) as the biggest parties, but the socialists have always
dominated there, whereas here in the Flanders, elections typically have a
less predictable outcome.

The French-speaking politicians are also highly royalist and are rather
adverse to a further state reform that would give the Wallonian region more
responsibility, because so far they are still draining the Flemish
community financially. The Partie Socialiste (PS) has also had a great
number of corruption scandals and is known to squander taxpayer money.
Likewise, one of the King's sons is also repeatedly being mentioned in the
media with regard to corruption. Not that he himself would be corrupt -
albeit that he's certainly being protected by an invisible hand - but the
advisors he surrounds himself with are.

As such, you can see that there are various movements in the Flanders which
seek to abolish this bad form of government, the money drain into Wallonia,
the royal intervention, and as such, also Catholic intervention, because
the Catholic Church is very close with the royalty. And with respect to
those movements towards more Flemish independence, there are those who are
considered rightwinged, like moderate and democratic NV-A and the rightwing
extremist Vlaams Belang - who have already been convicted of being a racist
organization under their previous name Vlaams Blok - and there are those
who are considered leftwinged, like the Vlaamse Progressieven, formerly
known as SPIRIT - which was a backronym.

I myself am ethically left of center, although there are certain things that
I cannot approve of personally, such as the breeding of human embryo
stemcells for genetic research. For me personally, a human embryo is a
potential human being, and I thus consider it perverse to experiment on
that.

Economically, I would be rather leftwinged, but not socialist per se.
Socialists tend to focus mostly on materialism, while I think the
humanitarian, spiritual and ecological aspects should be important as well.
Also, socialists put the state before the individual, while I believe the
individual to be important, and the state to be just "the collective of
individuals".

So I guess I'm a leftwinged liberal then. :-)

>> Just for the record, I was not stating why I believe they are being
>> leftwing-biased, but rather as to why they select whatever interest they
>> do. In fact, I don't think they really care whose side they're on. For
>> them it's always been about business, and so it will always be.
>
> Fox saw a need for some kind of balance and ran with it. The other
> networks are always brow beating them for being conservative.

If they *truly* are balanced, then it would be impossible to label them
conservative, right?

>>> In my opinion, it's because they wish to impose that brand of politics
>>> on the masses, to further the cause of /big-government-is-good/ that
>>> they think will help ensure their survival.
>>
>> I think that's a bit far-fetched, and in contradiction with the rather
>> traditionally mild rightwing bias of the statistically average American.
>
> That maybe turning towards the left. Won't know for sure until the
> upcoming elections.

Electoral behavior is in no way representative of a people's true beliefs.
You should know that. :-)

Americans are traditionalists in many ways, and while some American
movements or politicians introduce ideas that seem leftwinged or
far-fetched to others, the general American lifestyle still strongly leans
over to conservativism and even nationalism. ;-)

>> [...] As I understand it, everyone who wants to vote in the US must
>> register first as either a Democrat, a Republican or an Independent, and
>> the latter tend to swing back and forth between the Democrats and
>> Republicans. Is that correct?
>
> Yes somewhat, a little over simplified but close. The only problem with
> some states you cannot vote in the primaries if your an Independent,
> unless it's for an Independent. Which sucks cause I'm an Independent and I
> wanted to vote for Romney, now I'm stuck voting for McCain in the general
> election and I'm not happy.

Well, at the risk of getting accused of sounding anti-American (again), I
don't think your voting system could do with a serious revision.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not in favor of ours either. For
starters, Belgium is one of the very few countries in the world where every
citizen has the right to vote, and at the same time the obligation to vote.
You can of course cast a blank vote, which will then be added to the number
of votes of whoever wins the elections, but you _have_ to go out and vote,
on the penalty of Very Large Fines (TM) - up to 2500 Euro, I believe.

In the event of an incapacitating illness, you can vote by proxy, and if you
are on a planned vacation abroad and no facilities for voting for our
elections exist there, or if you are on a job and you can't take the time
off from work to come and vote, you must submit a certificate from your
employer, or from the travel agency.

Either way, if you're a Belgian citizen on Belgian soil and you're not
withheld from voting by your job or by some medical condition, you *have*
to go, whether it's a vote for the municipality, the province, the regional
government, the federal government or the European Parliament. Similarly,
those who monitor the voting process are selected by a computer and are
mandated to appear before their "call of duty", at the risk of the same
high fines as for no-show voters.

> I'm a Conservative and McCain is not. He's what we call a RHINO.
> Republican in name only.

I have heard such comments about him, yes. But then again, George W. Bush
supports him as the Republican Nominee, and you can hardly call Dubya a
liberal.

Also, John McCain does support the war in Iraq and the hardline national
security approach instated by Bush. So that makes him quite a typical
Republican in my book.

>> An American ex-military officer - retired as a Colonel, I believe - now
>> attached to the embassy recently explained something of that sort in a
>> political talkshow on television not too long ago. He did that in a
>> fairly decent Dutch, actually, and he also mentioned that it was kind of
>> "recommended and traditional" that military personnel votes for the
>> Republican presidential candidate. (I guess that must be where you're
>> coming from, then. :p)
>
> That's generally the way the Military votes because Republican are strong
> on Defense. Dems are usually very weak on Defense and love cutting it to
> ribbons. Jimmy Carter ring a Bell and even Clinton cut the hell out of the
> military.

While I can understand that those in the military don't want to lose their
jobs, excessive military expenses should not be of this day and age
anymore. There is a lot of needless investment in military technology that
could just as easily have been (better) spent on civilian applications,
especially with regard to social security and healthcare.

>> Either way, intellectuals tend to be rather leftwinged - that just comes
>> naturally with being intellectual (:p), although there have over the
>> course of history of course also been a great number of rather (and
>> extreme) rightwinged intellectuals.
>
> Who did you have in mind?

Well, to tell you the truth, the first name that popped into my brain when I
thought of rightwinged intellectuals was Adolf Hitler. He may have been a
psychopath - well, he *was* a psychopath - but he did have an intellectual
approach to his "vision" - albeit one that I certainly do not approve of -
before he became the leader of Germany in the late 1930s. Actually, he was
an artist even - a painter.

Hitler's philosophical views were largely based upon those of Wittgenstein
and Nietzsche, and both of those could be considered rather rightwinged as
well, albeit that I think neither of them had ever imagined that their
devoted follower would start a World War and would massacre 6 billion Jews.

>> Well, as I stated above, for as far as we Europeans can tell, America has
>> a slight bias towards convervatism and the Republican Party in terms of
>> culture, while in terms of the odds for either a Democrat or a Republican
>> to win the elections are very evenly distributed, and the actual election
>> depends on the mood of the Independent voters.
>
> That's very true. But its changing because the culture is changing and
> Political Correctness. Everyone is getting too touchy feely and afraid of
> offending others.

Yeah, we see that here too. While I do believe in mutual respect, there
*are* limitations as to how far one should go with this political
correctness. Sometimes the notions of what is politically correct shift so
rapidly even that it becomes ridiculous.

> To many damn immigrants mostly illegal coming into this country. It's
> starting to change the culture instead of as-simulating.

I believe that may be a local phenomenon in your area - most immigrants to
the US come from Mexico or farther down South; I doubt that you'd have
illegal Canadian immigrants ;-) - and that is certainly not the image we
see of the USA, especially not with regard to the Northern states.

>> Either way, the current American situation is that Congress is currently
>> dominated by the Democrats, while you (also currently) have a Republican
>> president in the White House. So you've got a little of both, but as
>> we've seen on numerous occasions, George W. Bush as made ample use of his
>> veto right already in the past couple of years, and so in the end, he's
>> still the one on top of the chain of command. After all, he _is_ still
>> the president for at least another year or so.
>
> To bad he doesnt have the Line Item Veto!!!!

I am not familiar with that term...

>> (Not that I think this veto right is a good thing, but this is a
>> consideration of a politically technical nature - I am not criticizing
>> George W. Bush right now, even if - as you know - I (usually) don't agree
>> with the man.)
>
> That's understandable. But we do what Europe is afraid to do. And that is
> ACT.

I'm sorry but you're spouting rightwinged propaganda now. There are many
matters of a much higher urgency than military interventions abroad or a
near declaration of martial law on American soil upon which the Bush
Administration did not or does not act at all.

The European Union has far more subtle ways of handling situations. We
don't have to wave our barrels around and scare people in order to gain
respect.

> While Europe sits on its hands like they did in WWII, [...

Allow me to give you a very short history lesson. Europe did not sit on its
hands in World War II. Hitler and Mussolini had prepared for that war long
in advance, and initially the Soviet Union was also supposed to stay out of
the conflict due to Hitler's pact with Stalin, which Hitler himself broke
when he invaded Poland, and thus Soviet territory.

Europe had appealed upon the American president up to three times to form an
alliance with the British, the Canadians, the Australians, the various
resistance groups and whoever else wanted to free Europe from the Nazis.
And three times, the American president *refused* to come to the aid of
Europe.

So when the Americans finally engaged in World War II, it was not to come to
our help, but for the sake of their own motives, including (but not limited
to) a financial investment in the rebuilding of Europe - known as the
Marshall Plan - which has in the meantime repaid itself in multitudes
already.

So please don't try to sell me that propaganda. I'm a grownup with a mind
of my own, and I prefer to maintain an objective view of the facts. I am
willing to pay each and every member of this newsgroup the proper respect
whatever their beliefs, but I expect the same in return. So please do not
insult my intelligence with propaganda, thank you.

> Extreme Muslims are causing problems. Seems you have a Muslim problem at
> the moment.

Do we now? That's funny because I don't see any Muslim problems here. What
I do see is a lot of problems with criminal and violent behavior by youths,
of whatever ethnicity or religion.

> Hmmmmm wonder why. Ya think they think you are easily messed with? There
> are times when I think Europe is a weak Continent and knows we will come
> to their rescue.

See a few paragraphs up for my response on that. And I repeat, spare me the
insult to my intelligence by American propaganda, please.

>
> Seems you know lots of the US political climate.

Yes, I am smarter than most people give me credit for... :p

> I love watching them destroy the Democrat Party.

This statement reeks of a strong hatred versus the American Democrat Party,
and given that the Democrats are not quite an extremist party, I sense a
biased opinion rather than an objective one.

But then again, your statements higher up have already betrayed that... :-/

> Up till now everyone thought they were above it all. Oh well.

That is certainly not the impression we Europeans get. In fact, even we
know that all too many Democrats have displayed far too loose marital
morals, and that the Republicans always make damn sure that every
Democratic candidate's dirty laundry is dragged out in public at every
election. (Or during their term, as was the case with Bill Clinton and the
Monica Lewinsky affair.)

>> Personally, I tend to lean over to Barack Obama as a "possibly good
>> American president" because I don't like Hillary Clinton. In my personal
>> view, she's attempting to get back into the White House for the wrong
>> reasons, the keyword here being "back". She liked it there, and she
>> wants to taste the power again. She's got a reputation - even over here
>> in Europe - of not being an honest woman.
>
> that's the way most see her here too. But I'm not a fan of Obama either.

Neither am I, as I've explained. But like I said, it's the lesser of two
evils, and the only alternative to yet another Republican in the White
house and more of the same international politics, as good a person as John
McCain may be.

>> Yet, as a European, I want to see the war in Iraq come to an end and a
>> more "internationally friendly" attitude from the USA than under George
>> W. Bush. Iran, China and now also Russia again are things best handled
>> with a great deal of care and caution. And thus, also in light of my own
>> political preferences, I would opt for a Democratic candidate, and so if
>> I have to decide which one of the current Democratic Candidates to pick,
>> I'd go with the lesser of the two evils, so to speak, and I would pick
>> Obama.
>
> Good luck dealing with Iran and Russia.

The Soviet Union no longer exists, but Vladimir Poetin doesn't quite honor
the various personal freedoms yet and seems very willing to get back into a
cold war situation if he's pushed in that direction. And the Bush
Administration's plan of building a rocket shield right on the Russian
borders isn't exactly helpful either.

> China I'm not to worried about yet. Although that could change after the
> Olympics and do think they will become a major threat in the future.

Nobody was mentioning a threat, although they *are* a nuclear force. I was
merely speaking in terms of their non-compliance with elementary human
rights and their possible support for other less trustworth nations in that
region - e.g. North Korea.

>> There, see, I'm not unreasonable. :p
>
> But very long winded :P

I'm afraid it's a consequence of my Asperger Syndrome. Aspies often tend to
be longwinded because we're meticulous in our sharing of information. We
want to make ourselves clear and point out inconspicuous little details
that other people tend to overlook, and of which history has proven that
they really do matter.

> And very informed about US Political Game. I'm impressed.

Thank you. I don't mean to brag and I'm certainly not omniscient but very
little goes unnoticed to me; yet another trait of my Asperger's.

In addition, I reckon our news broadcasts pay far more attention to what
goes on in the USA than American broadcasts would to what goes on over
here. The latter is understandable of course due to Europe being a
collection of many individual nations, while the USA is one big nation.

> I know next to nothing about Dutch Politics.

Oh, don't worry, neither do I. ;-) (I'm Belgian, not Dutch. ;-))

> I do love this country, it has givin me lots
> that is why I stick up for it vehemently.

Might I advise you to consider a more neutral vantage, though? Just because
you love your country doesn't mean you have to get into either believing
nor the spreading of propaganda... :-/

> Take care.

You too.

Aragorn wrote:

> Well, at the risk of getting accused of sounding anti-American (again), I
> don't think your voting system could do with a serious revision.
^^^^^

That word should have been deleted, as I meant to say that I believe your
voting system could do with some improvements - as does ours, but I've
addressed that already. ;-)

Wonder what fun it will be if GNU threatens to makes GPL release
mandatory for applications compiled with GCC..

Bad medicine, and it goes against the free software philosophy,
but still..
That day the morons will start obeying..

/varghese

ERACC wrote:
[..]

Dan C <youmustbejoking> wrote:

> ... Most "experts" agree that it is clearly biased to the
>left/Liberal side, and Fox News is not so much. Therefore the Libs can
>claim that Fox is the "right-wing" news network. In actuality, Fox is
>most closely aligned to the center and only appears to be slanted to the
>right because *ALL* the other news channels are so obviously left biased.

I've no idea since I'm a Brit, but the only things I've seen from Fox
News are those that've been highlighted on Digg, and those were
ulta-conservative to the point of absurdity, so much so that I suspected
that they were parodies, but apparently they were the real thing. The
most famous being their attack on "Anonymous". My guess is that you're a
Republican, and think that this report is perfectly reasonable:

[url down]

Dave Farrance wrote:

> Dan C <youmustbejoking> wrote:
>> I've no idea since I'm a Brit, but the only things I've seen from Fox
> News are those that've been highlighted on Digg, and those were
> ulta-conservative to the point of absurdity, so much so that I suspected
> that they were parodies, but apparently they were the real thing. The
> most famous being their attack on "Anonymous". My guess is that you're a
> Republican, and think that this report is perfectly reasonable:
>
> [..]
>
Hmmmmm, one clip out of millions and foxnews is a 24/7 newscast. Now that's
fair and balanced.

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:03:37 +0000, Dave Farrance wrote:

>> ... Most "experts" agree that it is clearly biased to the
>>left/Liberal side, and Fox News is not so much. Therefore the Libs can
>>claim that Fox is the "right-wing" news network. In actuality, Fox is
>>most closely aligned to the center and only appears to be slanted to the
>>right because *ALL* the other news channels are so obviously left biased.

> I've no idea since I'm a Brit, but the only things I've seen from Fox
> News are those that've been highlighted on Digg, and those were
> ulta-conservative to the point of absurdity, so much so that I suspected
> that they were parodies, but apparently they were the real thing. The
> most famous being their attack on "Anonymous". My guess is that you're a
> Republican, and think that this report is perfectly reasonable:
>
> [..]

I am a Republican, yes. Not sure what you mean by the report... I
certainly don't condone what this "Anonymous" group apparently does, but
it seems like a straightforward report on the subject. Are you condemning
the hacker group, or the network's report on them?

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 05:57:53 +0200, Aragorn wrote:

<snip>

>> The same thing happens on all college campuses, where the Lib-leaning
>> professors all try to indoctrinate young minds into the socialist/leftist
>> way of thinking while they are still impressionable.

> I think you're seeing ghosts now - no offense intended. Surely there is a
> strong leftwinged movement in the US, but there is also an equally strong
> rightwinged movement. This is why a Democrat will win the elections one
> day and a Republican will win the next day.

Yes, there is a strong "movement" on each side. What that has to do with
my statement above regarding college campus politics is quite beyond me.

Since you don't have any first-hand experiences on a US college campus,
I'll have to say that you don't know as much about it as I do. There is
absolutely NO doubt that what I said is correct, and even the
Libs/leftists will readily agree with that assessment. Sorry, but you
don't know what you're talking about there.

As for the rest of your lengthy comments, I simply don't have the
motivation to attempt to reply to them. All I can say is that your
information is filtered/modified as it passes all the way across the
oceans, and you cannot truly understand how things are from such a
distance away. No offense intended.

Dan C <youmustbejoking> wrote:

>> [..]
>
>I am a Republican, yes. Not sure what you mean by the report... I
>certainly don't condone what this "Anonymous" group apparently does, but
>it seems like a straightforward report on the subject. Are you condemning
>the hacker group, or the network's report on them?

"Anonymous" is an Internet meme -- as you might expect from such a name.
If you want to see a halfway reasonable attempt to explain it, then try:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

And *my* opinion of that Fox report is that it was wonderfully absurd.
Exploding trucks. Well well.

Anyway, is there a significant dichotomy between what might be considered
as the "Internet consensus" and the consensus-opinion of average
Americans? I ask because in the course of my Internet browsing, I've
stumbled across multiple references to Fox News, and they consistently
portrayed it as an ultra-conservative aberration. That seems to be the
unshakeable and almost universal belief of posters on free-for all
commentary sites like YouTube and Digg. And now for the first time, I
see people in an Internet forum (this newsgroup) mentioning the "fair and
balanced" aspect of Fox News without irony or hilarity, and with nobody
contradicting. It's curious. So what's the deal?

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:38:02 +0000, Dave Farrance wrote:

> Anyway, is there a significant dichotomy between what might be considered
> as the "Internet consensus" and the consensus-opinion of average
> Americans? I ask because in the course of my Internet browsing, I've
> stumbled across multiple references to Fox News, and they consistently
> portrayed it as an ultra-conservative aberration. That seems to be the
> unshakeable and almost universal belief of posters on free-for all
> commentary sites like YouTube and Digg. And now for the first time, I
> see people in an Internet forum (this newsgroup) mentioning the "fair and
> balanced" aspect of Fox News without irony or hilarity, and with nobody
> contradicting. It's curious. So what's the deal?

Well, it may be that you get differing opinions depending on what
method/group you are sampling from. Actually, that is quite obvious. I
would have to say that sites like YouTube and Digg are frequented mostly
by younger (college age) type kids, who are eager to be "heard" and are
regurgitating the propaganda that their college professors indoctrinated
them with. Naturally they will claim that Fox is right-wing-biased,
because Fox doesn't propagate the same Liberal biased reporting that ALL
other news sources bombard them/us with. It *seems* that way to them,
anyway. The reality is that Fox is the closest to the center (although
admittedly perhaps *slightly* to the right) of any news source available.

If you were to somehow get a sampling of opinions regarding news media
from the middle-aged portion of America, where folks have had time enough
in their lives to actually understand politics a little, I believe you'd
get a different evaluation than what you see on the Internet sites.

Jim Beard wrote:
> marksouth wrote:
>
> Oops! You are correct. I am wrong. Ghengis was the old
> man and Kublai his fourth son by his favorite wife, according
> to my old copy of the EB.
>
> Now I wonder if a remembered sketch of Gengis Khan studing
> Chinese texts was indeed a sketch of Gengis or a misremembered
> sketch of Kublai. Now if I could just remember where I saw
> the sketch...
>
> Cheers!
>
> jim b.
>
I thought Khan was that genetically-enhanced guy on Star Trek who looked
like Ricardo Montalban. ;-)

TJ

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:38:02 +0000, Dave Farrance wrote:

> And now for the
> first time, I see people in an Internet forum (this newsgroup)
> mentioning the "fair and balanced" aspect of Fox News without irony or
> hilarity, and with nobody contradicting. It's curious. So what's the
> deal?

well...many of us have been taught not to point our fingers and laugh at
the handicapped

Aragorn wrote:

> evodawg wrote:
>
>> Aragorn wrote:

>>
>> I like calling them PMSNBC which is a term made famous by our illustrious
>> leader Rush Limbaugh famous radio personality.
>
> I have heard (or rather read) the name Rush Limbaugh before, but at that
> time I didn't know who he was and I thought he was a Congressman or
> Senator. I had read about him in the editor's column of Guitar Player
> Magazine.

He's the largest radio personality in the US with the largest lightening
audience. He's a Conservative and usually makes a lot of sense.

> I myself am ethically left of center, although there are certain things
> that I cannot approve of personally, such as the breeding of human embryo
> stemcells for genetic research. For me personally, a human embryo is a
> potential human being, and I thus consider it perverse to experiment on
> that.
>
> Economically, I would be rather leftwinged, but not socialist per se.
> Socialists tend to focus mostly on materialism, while I think the
> humanitarian, spiritual and ecological aspects should be important as
> well. Also, socialists put the state before the individual, while I
> believe the individual to be important, and the state to be just "the
> collective of individuals".
>
> So I guess I'm a leftwinged liberal then. :-)
>> If they *truly* are balanced, then it would be impossible to label them
> conservative, right?

Lets just say they are conservative compared to the rest of what is called
so called news.

>> Electoral behavior is in no way representative of a people's true beliefs.
> You should know that. :-)
>
> Americans are traditionalists in many ways, and while some American
> movements or politicians introduce ideas that seem leftwinged or
> far-fetched to others, the general American lifestyle still strongly leans
> over to conservativism and even nationalism. ;-)

The majority, probably middle of the road

>
>>> [...] As I understand it, everyone who wants to vote in the US must
>>> register first as either a Democrat, a Republican or an Independent, and
>>> the latter tend to swing back and forth between the Democrats and
>>> Republicans. Is that correct?
>>
>> Yes somewhat, a little over simplified but close. The only problem with
>> some states you cannot vote in the primaries if your an Independent,
>> unless it's for an Independent. Which sucks cause I'm an Independent and
>> I wanted to vote for Romney, now I'm stuck voting for McCain in the
>> general election and I'm not happy.
>
> Well, at the risk of getting accused of sounding anti-American (again), I
> don't think your voting system could do with a serious revision.

You don't really sound anti-American. Think a lot of systems in the US need
revision.


>
> Either way, if you're a Belgian citizen on Belgian soil and you're not
> withheld from voting by your job or by some medical condition, you *have*
> to go, whether it's a vote for the municipality, the province, the
> regional
> government, the federal government or the European Parliament. Similarly,
> those who monitor the voting process are selected by a computer and are
> mandated to appear before their "call of duty", at the risk of the same
> high fines as for no-show voters.

Wow, vote or get fined. Now that's a new one.

>
>> I'm a Conservative and McCain is not. He's what we call a RHINO.
>> Republican in name only.
>
> I have heard such comments about him, yes. But then again, George W. Bush
> supports him as the Republican Nominee, and you can hardly call Dubya a
> liberal.

Bush has to support him, he's a Republican.

>
> Also, John McCain does support the war in Iraq and the hardline national
> security approach instated by Bush. So that makes him quite a typical
> Republican in my book.

He only supports it because we are there. He does not want to lose. Bush
broke it, he only wants to fix it. I was not in favor of going to Iraq but
was to Afghanistan. I would love to see us leave, but what would happen if
we did?

>> That's generally the way the Military votes because Republican are strong
>> on Defense. Dems are usually very weak on Defense and love cutting it to
>> ribbons. Jimmy Carter ring a Bell and even Clinton cut the hell out of
>> the military.
>
> While I can understand that those in the military don't want to lose their
> jobs, excessive military expenses should not be of this day and age
> anymore. There is a lot of needless investment in military technology
> that could just as easily have been (better) spent on civilian
> applications, especially with regard to social security and healthcare.


Its not about losing their job. It's about security. I agree to a point that
to much is spent on Defense and wasteful spending but there is a old
saying, "when your on top of the mountain there is always someone trying to
knock you off". Russia with Putin's help is reverting back to
Socialism/Communism and supporting Iran's quest for Nukes. China is
stealing our military secrets and becoming an economic power with our help
because of stupid trade policy's.

Defense does cut into what is needed socially, but you have a lot of
entitlement programs that are just completely unjustified and most
implemented by the Democrats. Dems just want to tax and make Government
bigger. I believe the opposite. Less Government is better. Government only
screws things up. You have folks here that believe they're entitled to sit
on their asses and collect. You have others that take pride in contributing
to society. Those that contribute are getting tired of paying through taxes
of course, for those that won't. Get them of the welfare payroll and you'd
probably have enough for National Health Care but not sure that's the
answer. Anything controlled by the Government is not going to work. It
never does, here anyway. Would you really want the Department of Motor
Vehicles controlling the Health Care Industry?

>>> Either way, intellectuals tend to be rather leftwinged - that just comes
>>> naturally with being intellectual (:p), although there have over the
>>> course of history of course also been a great number of rather (and
>>> extreme) rightwinged intellectuals.
>>
>> Who did you have in mind?
>
> Well, to tell you the truth, the first name that popped into my brain when
> I
> thought of rightwinged intellectuals was Adolf Hitler. He may have been a
> psychopath - well, he *was* a psychopath - but he did have an intellectual
> approach to his "vision" - albeit one that I certainly do not approve of -
> before he became the leader of Germany in the late 1930s. Actually, he
> was an artist even - a painter.

I thought that might be the one you had in mind, but was not sure because to
call Adolf Hitler an intellect might be a stretch. I would just rather call
him a lunatic.
An artist and painter in his own mind maybe.

>
> Hitler's philosophical views were largely based upon those of Wittgenstein
> and Nietzsche, and both of those could be considered rather rightwinged as
> well, albeit that I think neither of them had ever imagined that their
> devoted follower would start a World War and would massacre 6 billion
> Jews.

Yes and didn't he have them killed? So much for turning a lunatic on your
philosophy.

>> Yeah, we see that here too. While I do believe in mutual respect, there
> *are* limitations as to how far one should go with this political
> correctness. Sometimes the notions of what is politically correct shift
> so rapidly even that it becomes ridiculous.
>> I believe that may be a local phenomenon in your area - most immigrants to
> the US come from Mexico or farther down South; I doubt that you'd have
> illegal Canadian immigrants ;-) - and that is certainly not the image we
> see of the USA, especially not with regard to the Northern states.

There are some Canadian immigrants but they're legal. Nothing like the
illegals coming up from Mexico. And the Mexican Government is encouraging
it.

>
>>> Either way, the current American situation is that Congress is currently
>>> dominated by the Democrats, while you (also currently) have a Republican
>>> president in the White House. So you've got a little of both, but as
>>> we've seen on numerous occasions, George W. Bush as made ample use of
>>> his veto right already in the past couple of years, and so in the end,
>>> he's
>>> still the one on top of the chain of command. After all, he _is_ still
>>> the president for at least another year or so.
>>
>> To bad he doesnt have the Line Item Veto!!!!
>
> I am not familiar with that term...

When a bill comes across the Presidents desk it's full of PORK or
unnecessary spending installed in the bill by members of Congress to
impress their constituency. As it stands now the bill either gets approved
or veto in it's original form. What many Presidents want is the option to
strike out the pork and just approve the original bill as it was written.


>> I'm sorry but you're spouting rightwinged propaganda now. There are many
> matters of a much higher urgency than military interventions abroad or a
> near declaration of martial law on American soil upon which the Bush
> Administration did not or does not act at all.
>
> The European Union has far more subtle ways of handling situations. We
> don't have to wave our barrels around and scare people in order to gain
> respect.

Yes and we have seen the wonderful accomplishment the EU and the United
Nations have involved themselves in. Don't get me started on this subject.
As far as I'm concerned those two are worthless entities.

>> Allow me to give you a very short history lesson. Europe did not sit on
> its
> hands in World War II. Hitler and Mussolini had prepared for that war
> long in advance, and initially the Soviet Union was also supposed to stay
> out of the conflict due to Hitler's pact with Stalin, which Hitler himself
> broke when he invaded Poland, and thus Soviet territory.
>
> Europe had appealed upon the American president up to three times to form
> an alliance with the British, the Canadians, the Australians, the various
> resistance groups and whoever else wanted to free Europe from the Nazis.
> And three times, the American president *refused* to come to the aid of
> Europe.

You think maybe public opinion had anything to do with that? The United
States at the time wanted nothing to do with war and wanted to stay
isolated. My recollection, Europe didn't do much to stop the advance of the
Nazi's except for the British and that probably would not have happened
except for Churchill. The French are worthless when it comes to fighting a
war. It was only their underground that helped save face. Du Gaul was an
idiot.

>
> So when the Americans finally engaged in World War II, it was not to come
> to our help, but for the sake of their own motives, including (but not
> limited to) a financial investment in the rebuilding of Europe - known as
> the Marshall Plan - which has in the meantime repaid itself in multitudes
> already.
>
> So please don't try to sell me that propaganda. I'm a grownup with a mind
> of my own, and I prefer to maintain an objective view of the facts. I am
> willing to pay each and every member of this newsgroup the proper respect
> whatever their beliefs, but I expect the same in return. So please do not
> insult my intelligence with propaganda, thank you.

Well if you took it that way then sorry. It was not my intent. Its my
opinion and you know what they say about opinions, its like an asshole
everyone has one. Its my views and now you know what College Professors are
guilty of.

>
>> Extreme Muslims are causing problems. Seems you have a Muslim problem at
>> the moment.
>
> Do we now? That's funny because I don't see any Muslim problems here.
> What I do see is a lot of problems with criminal and violent behavior by
> youths, of whatever ethnicity or religion.

Well for some reason it was my understanding you lived in a Dutch region but
now I know its Belgium. Guess I was confusing some of the other regions in
Europe plagued with a Muslim mess and conflicts over their Religion and
beliefs.


>>
>> Seems you know lots of the US political climate.
>
> Yes, I am smarter than most people give me credit for... :p
>
>> I love watching them destroy the Democrat Party.
>
> This statement reeks of a strong hatred versus the American Democrat
> Party, and given that the Democrats are not quite an extremist party, I
> sense a biased opinion rather than an objective one.

It's only because the Democrat Party has been taken over by the lunatic
left.

>
> But then again, your statements higher up have already betrayed that...
> :-/
>
>> Up till now everyone thought they were above it all. Oh well.
>
> That is certainly not the impression we Europeans get. In fact, even we
> know that all too many Democrats have displayed far too loose marital
> morals, and that the Republicans always make damn sure that every
> Democratic candidate's dirty laundry is dragged out in public at every
> election. (Or during their term, as was the case with Bill Clinton and
> the Monica Lewinsky affair.)

The Republicans are not above the fray. They have had their moments too.

>> Neither am I, as I've explained. But like I said, it's the lesser of two
> evils, and the only alternative to yet another Republican in the White
> house and more of the same international politics, as good a person as
> John McCain may be.
>


I want to see it over to. But how do you get out without causing another
Genocide? I don't know why Europe is concerned they have nothing invested.


> Nobody was mentioning a threat, although they *are* a nuclear force. I
> was merely speaking in terms of their non-compliance with elementary human
> rights and their possible support for other less trustworth nations in
> that region - e.g. North Korea.

And lets not forget China's relationship with Iran. And their threats to
Hong Kong and the Dali Lama and his homeland.

>> I'm afraid it's a consequence of my Asperger Syndrome. Aspies often tend
> to
> be longwinded because we're meticulous in our sharing of information. We
> want to make ourselves clear and point out inconspicuous little details
> that other people tend to overlook, and of which history has proven that
> they really do matter.
>> Thank you. I don't mean to brag and I'm certainly not omniscient but very
> little goes unnoticed to me; yet another trait of my Asperger's.
>
> In addition, I reckon our news broadcasts pay far more attention to what
> goes on in the USA than American broadcasts would to what goes on over
> here. The latter is understandable of course due to Europe being a
> collection of many individual nations, while the USA is one big nation.

This is true

>> I know next to nothing about Dutch Politics.

> Oh, don't worry, neither do I. ;-) (I'm Belgian, not Dutch. ;-))
>
already addressed above

>> I do love this country, it has givin me lots
>> that is why I stick up for it vehemently.
>
> Might I advise you to consider a more neutral vantage, though? Just
> because you love your country doesn't mean you have to get into either
> believing nor the spreading of propaganda... :-/

opinions I don't believe are the same as propaganda. I see things
differently than you. Guess we can agree to disagree.

My final take on the 2 party system in the US
The Republican Party has turned into the Democrat Party
The Democrat Party has turned into the Communist/Socialist Party.
And I'm not a big fan of either but I'm totally against Communists and
Socialists, so you can see why my views are what they are. A third party is
not allowed to exist in the US, why? Because the Dems and Republicans have
to much money and spend them out of existence even though many would
welcome one.

later